No Fun February

After the gluttony of the christmas and holiday season, Silas and I usually decide to clean up our act a bit during February. We give up wheat, refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol and processed food. When we first did it we could only eat complex carbs, so no white rice or potatoes either. That was really quite hard. Silas is doing two weeks without dairy. I'm not going for that as I've got a real thing for milk and yoghurt and I'm breastfeeding a very hungry 4 month old. We are not so hard core this time round.

As usual the thought is much worse than the actual doing of it and we've had some delicious meals. I miss my cup of builders tea at the beginning of the day and in the afternoon. Sometimes lemon and ginger doesn't cut it. As we are allowed raw honey it means that there are a few sweet treats along the way as well. I've already posted about the Tahini Balls and here's a taster of our menu so far:-

Barbecue garlic prawns with green salad

Smoked Trout Kedgeree

Porcini Mushroom and Kale Risotto

Banana custard

Blueberry popsicles

Home made muesli with home made yoghurt

Asian blue eye cod and rice (Ta - Niall and Caz)

Home made macadamia pesto chicken with rosemary and garlic potatoes

Tahini Balls
Sardine and Borlotti Bean Soup
Rice Pudding
Chicken and Prawn Paella
Roast Chicken, Dutch Cream Potatoes and Carrots
Chick Pea Curry

Doesn't sound that bad - does it?

I've definitely lost weight - could be the breast feeding though. And I'm feeling healthier despite a fair bit of coldy fluyness about. Looking forward to a cool glass of wine though....

I've put the recipe for home made yoghurt below, its very simple and delicious and a money saver too, if you normally buy organic yoghurt.

Yoghurt

You will need a litre glass jar with a lid and a tea towel. We use the easyglo yoghurt making equipment but make our own in it.

1 tablespoon of yoghurt
1 litre of milk

Bring the litre of milk up to boiling point, but don't let it boil. Take it off the heat to cool down. Once you can put your finger in the milk and keep it there without getting burnt (not for faint hearted), mix the yoghurt with a bit of the milk in your jar and then add the rest of the milk. Put on lid tightly, wrap the tea towel around the jar and put it somewhere warm over night.

Voila! Yoghurt in the morning.

P.S. There are plenty of recipes that are more complicated or use thermometers but this works for me.